Newspaper overtaken by cable/internet?

[JaJae]

Originally Posted by David Octavius

Ja,

Your initial post fails to make a connection between the liberal flight from newspapers to Cable and the Internet.

As a person who works for an Online Ad Agency I can tell you that it has to do with the ability of the internet to form "tribes" of people who share similar interests and beliefs. Moreover the internet has better targeting abilities than other marketing channels to segment the audience to lifestyles and even income - what advertiser wouldn't want to be part of that? Lastly the internet is much more accountable than other channels - you can quickly see the results of your campaign to judge its success.

Not to mention that the internet audience is HUGE and advertisers would be dumb not to utilize it as part of their marketing mix.

Also of note - Internet advertising is about to surpass RADIO advertising spend.

All of this is not about the "liberals", just simply that advertisers are adjusting their budgets based on campaign needs, internet advertising grows by leaps and bounds every year, some other marketing channel is bound to get hit.

I don't think it's just liberals moving over so I wasn't trying to prove that there is a "liberal flight." I'm just using NY Time's numbers to show where the readers could be going. They aren't watching O'Rielly and they aren't reading conservative papers. They're likely switching to Matthews and Olbermann (who are seeing increasing viewers as NY Times declines) or the internet. I believe that people in general aren't reading papers as often and switching over to cable news and electronic sources.

Motivez has an excellent thread about the quality of our media. In that thread I discussed the views of the Time magazine editor where he basically says people want perspective.

I also think people want live news that is available on the internet and cable news. You can't get that in a newspaper. In today's society who wants to read yesterday's news when today's news is so easily accessible? I was in NYC yesterday and I started talking to a man who was in a store on his lunch break. He started showing me his new iPhone and couldn't say enough good things about it. He said he recently stopped getting a paper delivered because he can get it right on his phone. He said he pays $80 a month (not much more than other people pay for cell phone service) and he gets unlimited internet, free text messaging and free calls after 7pm. He said when he's laying in bed or on the couch at night and the kids are monopolizing the TVs with Xbox and reality shows he's surfing the internet on his phone. He's got an icon ready to go within a second to bring him straight to the NY Times website. When he used to get the paper in the morning he didn't learn anything new because he'd already been online the day before reading the news.

That's where we're headed as a society. Someone in another thread said something about when was the last time you've used a phone book? We're moving away from the old standards.

In my opinion, this is going to be the downfall of newspapers. The more society moves towards the "in the now" mentality and becomes more comfortable with technology the print media will slowly become washed up. There's still going to be a market for people who like to read the paper on their train ride to work or during their morning coffee. But slowly that too will change as wireless technology becomes more prominent.

[WickedLou9]

Originally Posted by JaJae

How is it not partisan? They ran the ad at the most prominent spot of their paper for a huge discount the morning moveon.org needed it to run. Have you heard of any other organization or company getting such a deal? Normally if you get a discount on ad pricing you're subject to have it run whenever the paper wants or wherever the paper wants to put it. Moveon.org got prime real estate for next to nothing. Moveon.org had plenty of money to pay the full rate, but the NY Times didn't make them. When asked why they received the rate they did the NY Times wouldn't answer and just quoted the normal rate.

When was the last time a conservative group got such a deal in the NY Times? Do you think if Rush Limbaugh wanted a full page ad to smear Hillary Clinton right before a congressional hearing he would have received front and center placement for a fraction of the cost? Of course not. In fact, they most likely wouldn't have even ran it. Is it really speculation when it's so obvious?

Bias is another story but blaming thier layoffs on the fact that they gave someone a discount is something that there is no data to support.

[Dispatcher]

For me it's a no-brainer...I can get my news from the internet for free or pay 50 cents a pop for a newpaper.

[A_C_E]

Originally Posted by Dispatcher

For me it's a no-brainer...I can get my news from the internet for free or pay 50 cents a pop for a newpaper.

There you have it, folks.

The case for subscription-only content on news-media web sites.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by A_C_E

There you have it, folks.

The case for subscription-only content on news-media web sites.

WSJ tried that and it doesn't work because there are so many other sources

[kombayn]

^Exactly. It's just like P2P websites and BitTorrent sites, they will always have alternate sources to information which is why the United States is trying to pass a "network-neutrality" law. They want to control the content, which cannot and should not happen.